


Rules for a Commonwealth Journalist

by follyofyouth



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Friendship, Gen, journalistic ethics are hard, piper muses on her professional choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 18:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10859934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/follyofyouth/pseuds/follyofyouth
Summary: Written for the Reverse Fallout Big Bang. Piper Wright reflects on how her life has changed since meeting the Sole Survivor.





	Rules for a Commonwealth Journalist

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written to accompany Arianna's piece featured below. Check out more of her work on Tumblr and learn more about her Sole Survivor, Gene, by visiting vkm11.tumblr.com/

Piper Wright is not what one might all a fan of nature. She has spent ample time in the Commonwealth’s surprisingly vast, often heavily irradiated wilderness and she can, with no shortage of certainty, assure you that she is not cut out for nature. Diamond City may be no picnic, but at least there she knows what to expect. Besides, these days, with the Institute gone, it almost passes for hospitable.

But she’s getting ahead of herself.

The first lesson of journalism is that you hitch your horse to the best story you find. You want a story that’s relevant, that’s compelling, that will give you enough room to maneuver if one of your sources turns up dead, a bloated corpse in Boston Harbor. It’s those stories, the big flashy ones, that keep a journalist in business, that keep a roof over her head, and ink on her presses.

But they should, ideally, be stories that will help people, too. Works that will right wrongs, overturn injustices, take a big stand for the little guy They should be the kinds of stories that encourage something, some little spark to go out and take action, to ask questions and push for change.

(This mentality may be the reason Piper has never been especially popular with the people in charge. They tend not to like their ivory towers being threatened.)

The McDonough story was supposed to be just that: a chance to demand something different. The evidence was there and it was substantial; the mayor was a synth. It either meant that the Institute had taken the man the people of Diamond City had rightfully elected, or that they had instead elected an Institute infiltrator. Neither possibility was comforting, especially with the way people kept disappearing around the self-proclaimed Great Green Jewel.

If the mayor wasn’t on their side, if he didn’t have the best interests of Diamond City’s citizens at heart, then the people deserved to know. After all, the first step in solving any problem is to learn as much about it as you possibly can. How could the population make any kind of informed decision without knowing the facts?

And that was really where the issue had germinated. People having knowledge gave people power. People having power was a direct threat to McDonough’s mayoral authority. Any threat to his mayoral authority would, of course, need to be swiftly dealt with.

Really, Piper should have seen this coming.

The article flew off the presses. Within a week, half of Diamond City was talking about it. By the end of the month, it had spread out to Bunker Hill and the other nearby communities.

She wasn’t even all that surprised when security refused to let her in after a trip out of town. Her sources had already dried up, and those who still passed her information did so from beneath a cloak of anonymity. Someone had put the squeeze on them; the only logical answer was McDonough.

Still, it left her with no food, no water, no bed, and no way in. Nat was tough, and could more than handle herself, but Piper still didn’t like to leave her alone overnight. If she could have only gotten word to Nick, she might have ---

Piper’s train of thought was interrupted by the appearance of a woman clad in a vault suit, eyes bouncing from her Pip Boy to the wall and back again.

The second rule of journalism is that you make do with what’s available. Sometimes, you have to use your resource creatively. Sometimes, you have re-tool your lead when a story doesn’t go the way you expect, but you’ve already put in the work. And, sometimes, you have to rely on strangers in vault suits who look strangely wet behind the ears.

(Seriously, who wore those suits? They didn’t even _look_ comfortable.)

Looking back, Piper admits she could have had a better introduction to Gene, one with less frantic gesticulating and fewer outlandish lies. When Danny opens the gate, she spares a moment of remorse for the friction this will no doubt cause the newcomer not only with Danny and the rest of security, but with Myrna as well.

So, when she had told the woman to come find her at her office, it was mostly an offer rooted in altruism, a genuine desire to mitigate the ways she might have complicated her life. Though, in the interest of true and full disclosure, she would have been lying if she said she didn’t sense a great story opportunity in the stranger.

When she was first breaking into the business, Piper had avoided so-called human interested stories. They were fluff; they weren’t real news. Who wanted to read about Joe to trader or Sally the mutfruit farmer? Profile pieces were either scathing or fawning. As far as Piper had been concerned, they fell outside the scope of real journalism.

But, as she had come to learn, human interest stories sold copies; sometimes, they even sold more copies than the big juicy stories, And, to boot, human interest pieces had the added benefit of being decidedly non-controversial. They made for a good follow-up after a piece generated real buzz; they kept her in caps while waiting for the heat to die down, and her sources to spring back up.

She tried to keep those human interest pieces newsworthy, though. If this woman, this Gene, was going to be her ride-it-out story, she’d have to make sure she was really story-worthy.

Suffice to say, when Piper heard the woman’s sad tale, Gene proved her salt.

It was moments like these that worried Piper. On the one hand, publicizing the story of a missing baby from a cryogenically-frozen vault and the mother who had emerged to search for her might generate some useful leads; it would certainly generate sales. But on the other, profiting off of the main of a mother and recent widow, a woman who had emerged from a two-century sleep to find the world around her blown to bits was somehow wrong. She was a journalist, no a vulture. To profit off of the woman’s story without at least offering to help would be abhorrent.

Or, that’s what reminded herself of as they plunged down into the abandoned subway station, through the advance of Triggermen, and towards the vault.

Gene was a good shot, unfazed by the chaos around them. She had written it off, explained that her husband had been in the Army, and insisted on teaching her to handle a firearm. Piper wouldn’t have believed the woman if it hadn’t been for the dogtags she wore around her neck, emblazoned with a name and serial number, coated in a fine layer of rust for authenticity. She groaned, wishing she had been the one with power armor training as a bullet whizzed by; then chastised herself, remembering how her husband had complained about the ‘damnable suit’ for close quarters combat. Silently, Piper makes a mental note to start asking a few more pre-war questions.

She was almost surprised to find Nick, despite Ellie’s certainty. In spite of the stories she had heard to the contrary, Piper never really believed the detective ever found himself in any trouble he couldn’t get out of. Evidently, she had been wrong.

Getting out had been story fodder in and of itself, the tale of a privileged Upper Stands runaway taking up with the savage mob boss, then leaving in a huff when he wouldn’t kill fast enough. It would ruffle some feathers, sure, but if anyone could take a ding to their ego, it was the residents of the Upper Stands.

While Gene and the detective carried out their business, Piper set about turning her interview into a story and setting it on the press. This was far and away her least favorite part of the job. It was tedious and time-consuming. For all she could trust Nat with, layout fell out of her younger sister’s purview, thanks to a rather lax sense of spelling and grammar. She made up for it in spades, though, thanks to a healthy belief in moral support and an uncanny ability to sell papers.

She had just begun to pull copies when they walked through her door. Gene’s face was drawn, and even Nick looked shaken.   
  
“Here’s your scoop, Piper: Conrad Kellogg is dead,” he said, voice tired.

“He had my son and he’s dead,” Gene added. Piper couldn’t help the way her voice caught, as if she were holding back tears, or fresh from a crying jag.

“Where’s your son, then? Where’s Shaun?”

Nick held up a small electrical device wrapped in a handkerchief. “We’re hoping this is our key to finding out. We pulled it out of Kellogg after the deed was done.”

“You … out of … that’s disgusting. What are you gonna do with it?”

“Irma and Amari.”

“You think they can get something out of it?”  
  
“That’s what we hope,” Gene said. “It’s our best shot.”

Piper had looked from Nick to Gene and back again, inwardly wondering if the pair had somehow lost their minds. Outwardly, she only nodded. “Good luck. Come find me if you need me.”

In the time they were gone, Piper ran both the interview with Gene and the piece on Kellogg’s death. Tensions between two brothers turned into a murder near Takahashi’s stand. Her sales soared. The talk of McDonough’s true nature never quite died down, though, and neither did the heat it had wrought upon her.

Nick returned first, stopping in to check on her. Her story about Gene had begun to carry far and wide; it had gotten the some good attention. He’d told her to expect the former vault dweller, that the woman had a proposition for her. Piper’s eyebrows rose at the cryptic missive, but she nodded regardless.

Yet another key tip in any journalist’s life is this: embrace the unexpected.

Gene did make her way in no too long after. The woman had ditched the suit for something a little less conspicuous, but kept the laser musket --- a detail which Piper noted with some curiosity.

The idea was simple: Nick would keep watch over Diamond City and report back while Gene worked on some sort of mysterious project with the Minutemen.

“What do you need me for?” piper asked. “I’m not much of one for fighting.”

“I want you to write about it,” Gene said. ”We’re gonna see a whole lot of the Commonwealth, meet a lot of people, make a lot of change. I want people to know about it.”

Piper cocked her head. “I’m no one’s PR girl.”

“Don’t need you to be. Just need the truth.”

So, she’d gone along. She’d left Nat under Nick and Ellie’s care, knowing she’d be safe, and that they would make sure she ate something other than gumdrops and Fancy Lads for dinner.

It worked like this: they’d go out on the road. Gene would run her errands, build settlements, clear hazards. The bullets flew more than Piper was entirely comfortable with, but it gave her a steady flow of material. Every few weeks, they’d make it back to Diamond City. Gene would go off on her rounds. Piper would write up, set, and run off a super-sized _Publick Occurrences_ , and then another for when the first batch sold out.

To be fair, Gene was a one woman source for news. It had started small, rebuilding Sanctuary Hills and turning it into a reputable settlement. Expanding trade networks. Building generators and purifiers and planting crops. But, eventually, it began to grow. Clearing raider gangs. Rescuing settlers. Retaking the goddamn Castle from a goddamn Mirelurk queen.

And that was just what Piper could print.

There could be no talk of clandestine meetings in the crypts of the Old North Church, nary a mention of synths spirited away in the middle of the night. The stash of guns, ammo, and artillery below the Castle was likewise embargoed. And then, there was the teleporter: the hulking mass of metal and machinery that promised to whisk Gene away to the Institute … _if_ they could get the Courser chip.

Violence was, as a rule, not Piper’s strong point. She was a writer by choice, a fighter by circumstance – though her time on the road with Gene had certainly sharpened those skills by something of necessity. This was all to say that she was hardly prepared to fight an Institute assassin.

Nick had heartily agreed and gone in her stead. Piper had waited anxiously for word back in Diamond City, taking the time to crank out the next edition with Nat’s help.

It would be the last issue they printed for some time.

After that, things began to happen quickly. Gene made the trip to the Institute and lived to tell the tale. She’d been overjoyed to find her son alive and well and truly heartbroken to learn he was the man responsible for some of the Institute’s worst atrocities. He’d made her an offer, an offer she’d refused and then they were all left to brace for war.

The attack on the Castle went on for hours with waves of reinforcements pouring in from both sides, and dead and wounded littering the grounds. Piper did what she could to help the doctors and their patients while staying out of the line of fire and frantically jotting down notes and observations. The sounds of turrets spitting bullets haunted her sleep for the next week after.

When they finally re-gathered and recouped, done what they could for their dead and those they’d left behind, the only question left was not what, but how to address the Institute. It was obvious that they needed to be dealt with, that a line needed to be drawn, but the issue remained that it was safely inaccessible, hidden somewhere secret and secluded.

Until it wasn’t.

She would hear later that Gene’s trek was long and dangerous, under water and through pipes and radiation, that she’d already had to take out more than her fair share of combat-oriented personnel by the time she’d warped them in.   
  
Being inside the Institute, inside the belly of the beast that had destroyed so many lives, was unlike anything Piper had ever done before. It was sort of beautiful in a way: green trees, clean white walls, clear water, giant murderous gorillas.

Alright, that last part was more awe-inspiring than beautiful, but the point remained _. If only the Institute had been willing to work with the people of the Commonwealth, instead of against them_ , she lamented. _We could have made real progress._

Still, she wasn’t sad to see it destroyed. Gene and Preston Garvey made a point to evacuate as many as they could, including the synths. A small boy ran towards Gene, wrapping his arms around her and calling her mom. Gene had only hesitated for a moment, a flash of pain behind her eyes, before wrapping her arms around him in an embrace.

Standing on top of the Mass Fusion tower, wind whipping her hair, she could only feel a pang of relief as the mushroom cloud rose above them, the boogeyman destroyed once and for all.

Of course, that didn’t necessarily solve all of the Commonwealth’s problems and, arguably, it created a few new ones, too. Coursers left to their own devices, a hulking crater, and increased radiation levels were just some of the fun and exciting consequences of doing in the devil.

Gene took some needed time off, settling her son in among the community at Sanctuary. The boy was smart and eager to please, both frightened by the world around him and excited at the possibility of exploring outside of the fiberglass and steel world that had defined his life to that point. He had seemed especially excited about the variety of food on the surface, a concept Piper had never truly considered.

For her part, Piper had negatives to develop, articles to write, and papers to print. Her readership base now extended out from Diamond City into Bunker Hill and the surrounding areas. She settled into routine, and life seemed to settle down. Tensions around the Great Green Jewel had largely dissipated with the destruction of the of the Institute, though Myrna still prattled on endlessly about shopping in synth-free safety. Sure, the Upper Stands were as snobbish and elite as ever, and sure, Shen’s water was still suspect at times, and yes, Takahashi still only offered one sentence and one menu item, but for the everyday Joe of the ‘Wealth, things were looking up.

Until she’d found Danny Sullivan smashed on the ground not far from McDonough’s office, blood leaking out of a gunshot wound to the gut.

“You,” A familiar voice called out from somewhere behind her. “Go get Dr. Sun.”

She turned to see Gene, gun holstered on her hip.

“Nice timing,” Piper called. 

“What happened?”  
  
“Piper was … right. Mayor’s … a … synth. Shot me … twice … then fell down here.” Danny ground out, grimacing against the pain.  
  
“Sun’s on his way,” Piper said. “You’re gonna be fine, Sullivan.” 

“Looks … like you get … a pretty good … ‘I told you so.’”

“I can gloat after you’ve stopped leaking your guts all over.”

Sun had bustled his way through the crowd, shouting and hauling a bag. He’d stabilized Danny and, with the help of a few others, carried him back to the Mega Surgery.

“You coming with?” Gene asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

Piper has to give Gene credit. In the ensuing scuffle, she’s not sure anyone else would have managed to get Geneva released without shooting the man. Sure the idea of a trial had turned out to be more flash than substance, especially after McDonough made his own grand exit, but in this case, it was the thought that counted.

They’d lingered in town a few days, enough to make sure Danny pulled through just fine (he did), that Geneva wasn’t given any trouble (she was), and that Piper had enough time to run off another batch of the latest issue (just barely).

Then, a guard had mentioned overhearing something funny going on at the old Museum of Witchcraft up in Salem, and just like old times, they were off again.

Looking back, the deathclaw should not have been a surprise. Yes, dismembered body parts could be indicative of any number of human or environmental hazards in the Commonwealth, but the lack of raiders or mutants should have really cut down on the list of possibilities. The loud, growling noises at least definitively reduced it to yao guai or deathclaw. It still hadn’t prepared her for body parts casually dropping from the ceiling once inside the museum, or the sounds of said deathclaw prowling over head.

“ _This is it_ ,” Piper thought. “ _I can see the headline now. Local Reporter Finally Done In By Own Curiosity Via Deathclaw Proxy_.”

She tried not to imagine Nick coming to look for her and instead finding remains. She tried not to imagine what he’d have to explain to Nat.

She tried not to imagine how much it would hurt.

They had made their way gingerly along, careful to avoid creaking boards or excess noise.

They had found the egg and the holotape, and made their way back out, scrambling for the door when the animal finally noticed their presence, and slamming it behind them and bolting away.

And now, here they were, trekking through brush and the husks of burned and desiccated trees, searching for signs of a deathclaw nest.

Piper could respect kindness, could respect maternal instincts. She had been overjoyed to help Billy re-united with his family, especially given the whole ‘trapped in a refrigerator for some two hundred years’ debacle. Even once the Gunners showed up, and their job had taken a more aggressive tone, it had felt fulfilling. She was a sucker for a happy, whole family; it was the one thing she truly missed, the driving force behind _Publick Occurrences_. If her work, her writing, could keep one more family together, spare one more kid a lost parent, or one more sister a brother, then it was worth the violence and the threats and the moving around.

But reuniting a mother deathclaw with her purloined egg … that was … a little different. A little foolhardy, even by her standards.

There was no sugaring Gene off of it, though. Besides, what would they have even done with it? With the heat of summer riding high over the Commonwealth, and with their collective luck, it would hatch in someone’s traveling pack, and they’d be left playing mommy to a miniature meat grinder. It had been bad enough trying to run the presses when Nat was young; Piper couldn’t imagine attempting the same with a baby deatchlaw.

Piper is hot. She is hungry. Her bag is heavy and she knows they are still hours from the nearest Minutemen allied settlement. She is sore and in desperate need of some Rad-X, a shower, and a seat that passes for comfortable. For all she knows, they are both marching to their untimely demise.

The nest is large, a mess of tangled twigs and scrub, and empty. Piper guesses from the size, and from the detritus left at the museum, that it must have been a fairly large clutch once upon a time. Behind it is a rocky escarpment, and an old, gnarled tree.

The creature that slides down it is huge, hulking, and strangely apprehensive as Gene approaches, egg proffered in front of her like some kind of peace offering, The creature simply watches as Gene sets it into the nest, willing to trust this human intruder.

“It’s okay, Mama,” Gene offers softly. “I’m not gonna hurt your baby. I’ve been there. I won’t take him from you.”

Piper’s heart clenches; the comparison to Gene’s own situation is obvious. She hasn’t asked her friend about the small synth replica of her son; it’s a conversation she’s had only in hushed tones with Nick. She’s not sure how to broach the conversation and not entirely sure she should. Gene may have gained a replacement, so to speak, but the human Shaun was still killed in the Institute’s destruction, still would have died in a matter of weeks even if they had allowed his work to continue unimpeded. Piper can’t imagine that’s a simple matter to sort through.

Gene retreats and they watch in silence as the animal almost gingerly covers her surviving baby-to-be with a layer of dust and dirt, then back away slowly, never taking their eyes off of her.

Maybe the most important rule of journalism, the one that Piper learns and re-learns almost every day, is to find joy in the work. It’s a line of work where you see a lot learn, learn a lot about people and what they’re capable of. It’s not always uplifting. It’s a lot of slogging through micro and macroagressions and hoping it will all be worth it at the end. It demands a kind of belief, a ferocious insistence that the work is not for naught, that if it changes one life it has been worth it.

And maybe, if you’re lucky, just maybe those stories change your life too. When Piper met Gene outside the wall those months ago, she had only been looking for a way in, a way to solve a problem and do some good in the process. She hadn’t bargained for being roped in on the greatest tale to grace the Commonwealth since someone started putting together the complete works of The Unstoppables, hadn’t planned to be documenting the fight for the Commonwealth’s future.

And, yet, here she is.

So, yes, her feet ache and her back aches and she is tired. Yes, she’d give her right shoe to be back in her bed in Diamond City. And, yes, she _is_ more than a touch concerned about the future implications of what they have just done.

But she is happy and, for now, that is enough.


End file.
